Market participants “don’t see all our activity,” and
bloggers have “a misunderstanding of the nature of our
business,” Masters said today in an interview on CNBC. There is
“an underlying client position” involved in hedge or forward
trades, she said on CNBC.

A multiyear investigation into the possibility of unlawful
acts in the silver market is continuing after regulators
analyzed more than 100,000 documents, the U.S. Commodity Futures
Trading Commission said in November.

Silver futures for May delivery rose 2.2 percent to close
at $31.73 an ounce today. The price has dropped 36 percent from
a 31-year high of $49.845 on April 25, 2011.

JPMorgan, based in New York, and HSBC Holdings Plc were
sued in October 2010 by investors, including Peter Laskaris, who
alleged that starting in March 2008, the banks manipulated
silver in futures and options, partly by placing so-called spoof
trading orders.

The banks reduced their collusive trading and their
holdings in futures market after a government investigation
began in 2008, according to the complaint by Laskaris.

Suits Pending

In September, investors said in a consolidated class-action
complaint that they had signed a tolling agreement with HSBC and
weren’t naming the bank as a defendant.

Tolling agreements are often used to stop statutes of
limitation from running while the parties discuss settlement or
dismissal of a claim.

The Laskaris case is one of about 45 similar suits pending
in federal court in Manhattan, where they have been transferred
for pretrial proceedings.

JPMorgan, along with Barclays Plc, joined Goldman Sachs
Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley as the most active in global
commodity derivatives trading, a Greenwich Associates survey of
corporate treasury officials shows.